Fallen Into the Pit

somebody has to do the dirty work; but there was an answer to that, too, and she had a feeling that Dominic would put his finger on it. And in any case there would be a lot more days after tomorrow, time enough to get over this and be ready for the next inescapable tangle when it came. So she just hugged and soothed him, and said placidly: “No, darling, no, you shan’t! Of course you shan’t!” and held him gently rocking in her arms until he stopped crying and went to sleep.

X—Treasure Trove

One

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He got over it, of course, very quickly, almost as quickly as Comerford did. Only half the story was ever allowed to leak out, but it was enough to cause people to turn and look twice at Dominic in the street, and attract a comet’s-tail of envious boys to trail after him on the way to and from school. Pussy shared his notoriety, but Pussy was a born iconoclast, and delighted in pushing even her own false image off its pedestal. But Dominic could enjoy being idolized, even while he saw through it; and the jealous scorn of Rabbit and his coterie was even sweeter to him than the adoration of the rest. Pretty soon it became necessary to take him down a peg. George had not saved his ammunition for nothing.

Not that there was anything peculiarly displeasing about Dominic on the gloat. He enjoyed it so, and laughed so wickedly at himself and his gallery at the same time, that it needed a serious-minded father to find the heart to burst the bubble. And then it was not an unqualified success.

“You are undoubtedly,” said George, laying down his office pen, “no end of a clever devil, my lad. But let me tell you this, that coup of yours was the most barefaced fluke that ever came off to the shame of the really clever. And now I’ll say what I’ve been storing up for you, young man, for a long time. If ever you put your private oar into my affairs again, and put me or anyone else to the trouble of lugging you out of a spot like that, look out for yourself afterwards, that’s all! You’ll be due for the nearest thing to a real hiding you ever had in your life, just as soon as I get you home undamaged. I ought to have done it this time, but next time I won’t make any mistake.”

Dominic, when he could speak, gasped: “Well, I like that! I save you no end of a long, dreary job, and maybe one that would be a failure, anyhow, and solve your beastly case for you, and that’s all the gratitude I get!” But he was laughing even then, at George as well as himself, until hard paternal knuckles rapped at the back of his head, and jolted the grin from his face.

“Better take notice,” said George. “I mean it.”

And he did. One sober look at him, and there was no more question about it. Dominic digested the steadying implications, and went away to think it over; but his spirits were too much for him, and he could not, in his present irrepressible state of gaiety, be put down in this way. Five minutes later he was back. He put his head in at the office door, and said sweetly: “I told Mummy what you said. She says if you try it, you’ll have to deal with her.”

“Tell her from me,” said George grimly, looking up from his work, “that I’ll be delighted to deal with her—after I’ve dealt with you! And if you come barging in here just once more today,” he added, warming, “I’ll start now.”

Dominic laughed, but he went, and he did not come back with any more impudence that day, which in itself was enough to suggest that he had decided to pay a little attention. And presently the exhilaration which had followed on the heels of his first revulsion went the same steady, sensible way into oblivion, so that before Christmas his days had settled again into a beautiful reassuring normality. People didn’t forget. It was rather that events slipped away into perspective, and left the foreground for what was newly urgent, end-of-term examinations, cake-mixing, present-buying, and all the rest of the seasonal trappings. Not even the very young can iron out flat all the unevennesses of the past, but the mountains of today are the molehills of tomorrow.

So Comerford got over the shocks to its nervous system, and the place where Selwyn Blunden and his son had fitted began to heal over even before the winter had set in. He had already ceased to be the main topic of conversation in the village by the time he died in prison in November, before he could be brought to trial. Medically his death was curious. He was old, of course, and parts of his economy were wearing out with over-use; but there seemed no special reason why he should dwindle away and stop living as he did. Bunty said he had died of frustration and cumulative shock at finding that, after all, he was not above the law. He was a bad loser, because he had always used his position and privileges to avoid any exercise in the art of losing gracefully. It seemed seriously possible that spleen should kill him.

So there was never a verdict in either of the Comerford cases, except the verdict which had already been collectively pronounced by the village; but that was all that was required to set the village free to go back to its everyday occupations. The rift in the wall of society closed gently with the closing year. And there were other things to be discussed, other surprises to be assimilated, like Io Hart’s quiet marriage to Chad Wedderburn, at Comerbourne registry office at the end of November. A quick decision, that was, said Comerford, considering the other one wasn’t long dead; but this wasn’t the first knot that had been cut by events when it couldn’t be unraveled by humankind, and maybe it was all for the best.

Pussy confided to Dominic: “You don’t know how much trouble she had with him, even after that night. The time he spent trying to tell her he ought not to let her do it! It would have taken more than him to stop her, once she knew he was only trying to be noble. You men are a silly lot of dopes, if you ask me. But she nagged him so much, he had to marry her in the end to shut her up.”

The more usual interpretation of the affair was that Chad had managed to get Io at last, after infinite trouble, because Charles Blunden was no longer there to be his rival. But Pussy, though prone to sisterly derogations, was nearer the mark. The only thing for which her version did not quite account was the look of extreme and astonished joy on the bridegroom’s face when the little registrar shut the book, smiled at them, and said: “Well, that’s all! You’ve done it now—you’re married!”

Then the rumor started, and proved by Christmas to be no mere rumor, that Gerd Hollins was expecting a baby at last, after nine years of hoping and one of quietly giving up hope. They’d even thought of adopting one, when it began to seem certain that they would have none of their own; but now there was a fair chance of a son coming to the farm in his own right, and good luck to him, said Comerford, and to his mother, too; she’d had more than her share of the bad. A bit late, perhaps, to start a family, but she was a strong woman, and older and less sturdy wives had produced healthy first babies before now.

So what with births and marriages, Comerford could balance a death or two.

A distant cousin came to the Harrow after the old man’s death. He seemed a nice enough young man, and he had a different name, which made things easier; and he came in time to have the last mild word upon the open-cast site. As far as he was concerned, they were welcome to go ahead, and so they did, as soon as the year turned and the mild, lengthening days began. Later surveys stated that the amount of coal to be harvested would be even larger than had at first been supposed, and the project would certainly pay for itself handsomely.